


Kings of New York

by mattygroves



Category: Newsies!: the Musical - Fierstein/Menken
Genre: F/M, Labor Rights, M/M, New York City, Post-Canon, Yes homo, friends to cuddlers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-23
Updated: 2016-05-23
Packaged: 2018-06-10 04:05:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,755
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6938923
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mattygroves/pseuds/mattygroves
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jack turned to him and something on his oldest friend’s face made him stop mid sentence. He’d seen the look before, but didn’t know what to make of it. He just wanted to fix it. Needed to fix it. If he could only figure out what it was.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Kings of New York

**Author's Note:**

> My friend just took me to see the Newsies touring cast and I came home and wrote this :D

November 1909

Jack rose early in his tiny apartment in Little Italy. He still couldn’t believe it some mornings, waking up with a roof and walls. Crutchie still snored gently a few feet away. Not all that much had changed. 

He still worked for Katherine’s father as an artist on the paper. It was enough to keep him and Crutchie in this small studio, with two single mattresses on either side of the room and a bathroom two floors down. Jack kept hoping a room would open up on that floor so it’d be easier on Crutchie, but they were making it work.

Splashing his face in the basin, he began the work of shaving in the diffused morning light. The water was cold from sitting overnight and the dull safety razor burned a little. Crutchie stirred behind him, visible in a corner of the mirror.

“Mornin’ sunshine,” Jack drawled.

“Mornin’ this,” Crutchie said with a customary rude gesture that always brought a grin to Jack’s face.

“I’m meetin’ Katherine for lunch at Martini’s if you wanna join.”

“Nah,” said Crutchie, “I don’t wanna be a third wheel.”

“I told you, Crutchie—”

Jack turned to him and something on his oldest friend’s face made him stop mid sentence. He’d seen the look before, but didn’t know what to make of it. He just wanted to fix it. Needed to fix it. If he could only figure out what it was.

#

Katherine was glowing with excitement; she could barely keep her seat at the deli counter. 

“The air was electric, Jack, I wish you could’ve been there,” she was saying. “Clara Lemlich—remember that name—stood up and the world just stopped. All eyes were on her. The men had been going on for ages and gotten nowhere. But she just stands at the podium and declares a strike and now there’s a strike.”

“That’s amazing,” Jack said.

“Garment workers across Lower Manhattan—you know, most of them are women—Jewish immigrants—and they’re paid less than the men and given the crummier jobs. In some factories, they can’t even use the facilities without asking for permission!”

It made Jack smile that Katherine, for all her toughness and bluster, still turned pink at the tips of her ears when she used words like “facilities.” Even a simple piss had to be couched in innuendo and it didn’t make it less embarrassing for the heiress. 

“Hello, Jack, are you with us?”

“What?”

“You dozed off for a moment. Is my father working you too hard? ‘Cause I can have a word with him,” she smirked.

“No, it ain’t that. I’m sorry. Something’s bothering Crutchie and I can’t figure out what it is. That’s great about the strike, though, sounds like a real fine story. Should sell a lot of papers.”

“It’s not about the papers, Jack. It’s about the people. You of all people—”

“Oughta know that, I know. I’m sorry.”

He’d been saying that a lot lately, but bless him if he knew why.

Katherine calmed down as easily as she flared up. She looked at him a long moment, expectantly. Then the blush was back on the tips of her ears and she dropped her gaze.

“I think I know what’s eating at Crutchie,” she said finally.

“You gonna tell me or do I hafta read it in the papers tomorrow?”

“I was hoping I wouldn’t have to be the one to bring this up, but he asked me, so,” she paused again, looking over his shoulder. “He asked if we’d be getting married soon. He said he wanted time to figure out a place to go, he didn’t want to be a burden to you.”

“A burden?”

“Those were his words. I’m sorry, I feel all in the middle of this.”

“So,” it was his turn for a long pause, his turn not to make eye contact. “Married, huh?”

“Well, we have known each other for ten years, Jack. I love you, you know.”

“I love you, too.”

“Do you?”

“Katherine, how—”

“Just think about it, okay. For me.”

“Okay.”

“I’ve got an exclusive with Clara. I’ve gotta run.”

“Who?”

“Clara Lemlich. I told you to remember her name.”

“I won’t forget again.”

She kissed him on the cheek and a ring of the bell signaled her departure.

#

Instead of going back to the office after lunch, he wandered the streets and found himself at Miss Medda’s theater. 

“I hope you’re not planning to mope around my audience with that long face,” was the first thing she said to him.

When he responded with a shrug instead of snappy retort, she softened.

“What’s the matter, baby? Girl troubles?” she raised an eyebrow, “Boy troubles?”

“Geez, Miss Medda, you know I ain’t—”

“Honey, I’ve been around the theater long enough to know what you are and what you ain’t. And so have you, I might add.”

“Katherine wants to get married.”

“And?”

“And what?”

“And what’s stopping you?”

“I love Katherine.”

“And?”

“Maybe I’m just not ready.”

“You’re a twenty-seven year old man with a stable job, seems pretty ready to me. Haven’t sown enough wild oats?”

That finally got a grin out of him.

“Now, Medda, you know that ain’t true.”

“So?”

At least she had switched to a new one-word question.

“What’s gonna happen to Crutchie?” he said finally.

“That boy is all grown up, he can worry about himself, you know.”

“But I’ve always worried about him.”

“And now you can worry about Katherine for a change.”

“She seems to want that.”

“And what do you want?”

“I—I don’t know.”

“I think you do. Now get your ass out of my theater and go do something about it.”

They were already announcing her on stage, but she took a moment to drag a reluctant Jack into a warm embrace.

#

Jack couldn’t remember his mother. What he remembered of his father wasn’t exactly heart warming. When David and Les had finally dragged him home for dinner one night not long after the newsies’ strike, there had been a moment—a moment when the idea of family had seemed real. He’d never had that. Katherine hadn’t really, either; or Crutchie. 

But with the Jacobs, squeezed around a small table in a smaller kitchen, it had seemed possible. Mrs. Jacobs had made the best latkes, not that he had much home cooking to compare them to.

Mrs. Jacobs had gotten a job in a shirtwaist factory so her sons could go back to school. And now she was probably striking just as they had. He wondered about David, sometimes, in rabbinical school now. He wondered if David would be proud of his mother. He probably was.

He’d told Crutchie they were family, he and Jack against the world, looking out over New York from their penthouse fire escape. Now their view was the building across the alley, but the winters were a little easier. He couldn’t imagine coming home and Crutchie not being there.

#

“I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t sad, or disappointed, Jack.”

“I’m sorry,” he said, for the first time in weeks understanding why he said it.

“You didn’t know. I hope—I hope in a little while we can be friends again. Your friendship means the world to me.”

“Me too,” Jack said.

“Just give me some time.”

#

It was late as he made his way through the streets of Little Italy. He’d caught Katherine alone at the office, working against a deadline on her story about the shirtwaist strike. 

“What do you think of this, Jack? I’m calling it the Uprising of the 20,000. Is it too wordy?” she’d asked, dispensing with greetings altogether.

“It’s great,” he’d said.

He had walked off that conversation for a long time. Then he bought one of those new fangled pizzas and had them wrap it up. On impulse, he purchased a bottle of wine to go with it that he now carried under his arm.

On the steps of his building he grew nervous, a feeling he hadn’t felt since the first time he stood in Pulitzer’s office and betrayed his friends. His family.

Squaring his shoulders and letting out a long breath, he opened the door.

#

“It’s late,” Crutchie said, “Been out with Katherine?”

“Not really, well, kind of. We called it quits. I brought food.”

When had talking to Crutchie become so difficult? He was just sitting on his thin mattress with his legs stretched comfortably in front of him, reading the evening paper, but Jack’s mouth had gone dry.

He gulped. “Anything good in the paper?”

“Funny cartoon about Taft’s ‘Southern Policy’—must’ve been a pretty smart artist.”

Jack was definitely not blushing. Definitely not.

“I can’t believe they let me run that one, too be honest.”

“You wanna talk about Katherine?” Crutchie asked, patting the spot on the mattress next to him. 

“Not before I get half of this bottle of wine in me,” Jack said as he took his customary seat. Had he never noticed how close they were? How warm Crutchie’s body was next to him? How right it felt?

He folded a piece of the pizza as he ate, using the paper it came in as a makeshift napkin on his lap. Crutchie followed suit and they ate in silence for a while, taking swigs from the bottle in turn.

They ate the whole pizza and finished the bottle, the wine and the late hour making their eyes start to droop.

“Maybe we’ll just talk tomorrow,” Jack mumbled, “I’m falling asleep. Don’t know if I’ll make it to my bed.”

“Then don’t,” Crutchie whispered. Jack wasn’t sure if he heard him right, he’d never felt so drunk from a bit of wine before. But Crutchie was so warm next to him, inviting, he curled against him like a shell and they laid down on the bed. Crutchie blew out the single candle that had been lighting the room; his hand brushing through Jack’s hair. Jack must have had a stupid look on his face, his mouth slightly open in surprise, because Crutchie asked, “Is this okay?”

“Yeah,” Jack said, still looking down at him.

Leaning forward, he pressed their lips together in a soft kiss.

“Is that okay?” Jack asked.

“Yeah.”

Jack laid his head on Crutchie’s chest, feeling his rapid heartbeat start to slow. As he drifted off to sleep he sent up a silent prayer of thanks for the soothing effect of wine, in case God listened to people like him.

**Author's Note:**

> Ok, because, like, the first song in the stage show is a love song between Jack and Crutchie and no one can convince me otherwise. Jack hugs Crutchie from behind and they sing together, that's classic romantic blocking. And later the writers are all like, "what? no! they're just like brothers! no homo!" But I say, YES HOMO.


End file.
